316 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM, 
Glaucothea armata (S. Wats.) Cook. BLUE PALM. Prates 106, 107, A. 
Brandegee states that this species is abundant in northern Lower California, growing 
in canyons or along the sandy bottoms of dry streams in the foothills on both eastern 
and western slopes of the mountains. He records it from ‘‘San Esteban and north- 
ward.’ <A blue-leaved palm collected at Yubay may be referable to armata. The 
palms of Lower California are very imperfectly known. 
Phoenix dactylifera L. DATE PALM. PLATE 107, B. 
The common date palm, introduced many years ago in southern Lower California, 
is thriving in many places. About the towns of San Ignacio, Comandt, and San 
José del Cabo there are extensive groves, which produce good crops of the fruit with- 
outany care. Smaller groves grow in the moist, saline soil about some long-abandoned. 
water holes at San Angel, in the southern part of the Vizcaino Desert, about 40 miles 
west of San Ignacio. At this place, in their desert setting of shifting sand dunes, the 
palms suggest an oasis of the Sahara. 
Washingtonia filifera Wendl. 
The palms commonly referred to the genus Washingtonia (or Neowashingtonia) are 
very imperfectly known. One or more species are represented at isolated localities 
extending in a chain, mainly along the eastern side of the Peninsula, from near the 
international boundary to the Cape. Several names are based on plants raised from 
seed of uncertain origin. According to Brandegee many palms of this species now 
cultivated in California probably came from seed collected along the western edge of 
the Colorado Desert, and in Cantillas Canyon, a locality in Lower California, just 
below the boundary near Campo. Mr. O. F'. Cook, who has devoted much study to 
American palms in general, suggests that W. filifera may have been carried by some 
of the early travelers from the Cape District of the Peninsula. Mr. 8. B. Parish in 
“A contribution toward a knowledge of the genus Washingtonia” ! arrives at no 
definite conclusion. . 
Washingtonia gracilis Parish. 
This form was described from cultivated trees growing in San Bernardino and Riv- 
erside, California. Parish states that it is probably indigenous in northern Lower 
California. The characters he gives to distinguish it from W. filifera and its varieties 
are the more slender trunk and smaller, less deeply divided leaves, without filaments 
and on shorter petioles. In the northeastern part of the Peninsula the palms are of 
rather slender growth, as shown by photographs by Edmund Heller taken in Agua 
Caliente Canyon and by my own photographs and specimens from farther south, and 
if not W. filifera they may represent this species. In this region they grow mainly 
along the rocky sides of watercourses. 
Washingtonia sonorae S. Wats. SONORA PALM, 
Under this name Brandegee records the large palm which grows along the coast in 
parts of the Cape District from La Paz southward. On account of an apparent prefer- 
ence for the low elevations in the vicinity of the seashore he regards it as a more 
suitable species than W. jilifera for cultivation near the coast of California. Washing- 
tonia sonorae was described from specimens collected near Guaymas by Palmer, and 
Watson assigned to this species specimens taken by the same collector at La Paz, 
Lower California. Brandegee suggests that the species may extend northward along 
the Gulf of California to the region about the mouth of the Colorado River. This 
seems very doubtful, as we found no palms of any kind at the localities visited on the 
coast near the upper end of the Gulf. 
‘Bot. Gaz. 44: 408-434. 1907, 
